Stephen had produced two items under First Thirty Years. The first is in PDF format and delves into the creation of TAB Print. The second item is 'A Most Unusual Audit'. You'll find it is a very good read.

One Thursday in late 1970 while walking up to where my brand new car was parked in Bulwarra Road Ultimo I noticed a lot of chrome trim on the road. Glancing further along it became apparent it was from my car. Obviously the garbage truck had just managed to scrape the chrome off. “No problems” my brother-in-law said “bring it down to the panel shop and the blokes will fix it up on Saturday”.
 

 

Going home that night I was ‘T boned’ turning into my driveway resulting in the car then needing to be towed to the panel shop with repairs likely to take 2 weeks. With only a few minor glass cuts I caught the train to work on Friday to tell my boss David Raper that I would not have a car to travel to metropolitan field audits for awhile. David, in his inimitable style, said not to worry, do a week of audits in the country and take a TAB vehicle.
 

 

So, with itinerary in hand, I set off early Tuesday morning in the Board vehicle to do the first audit at 261 Nyngan. As would be expected of Agent Keith McChesney, the audit was “spot on” and I stayed overnight in Nyngan. The following morning, expecting to be back that night, I left my belongings in the motel and set off for the 2 hour drive to Bourke arriving at around 9am.
 

 

Knocking on the TAB door and seeing no one I put the green ‘auditor inside’ sticker on the door lock and started the audit. At this time it was approaching 30 degrees Celsius. As time went by a sixth sense seemed to tell me something was wrong. The manual telephone betting cards were not locked away, the payout box didn’t balance etc. Then about 10.30am the telephone rang and a female voice said she was the Agent’s mother and “I believe he has gone off his head and shot through”.
 

 

I thought this was a great start to my first country trip and rang Control Centre. Bill Thom answered the phone and the decision was made to operate the agency as it was a “C” class and punters would be expecting a service. Bill would inform Regional Controller Terry Bear. A few minutes later a telex came through indicating the ex-agent at 254 Bourke was not permitted to enter the office space of any TAB.
 

 

How to run the agency? I was there on my own and no regional staff, who might have been able to assist, was anywhere close.
 

 

I rang the Agent’s Relief Josie Whyte and explained the situation and asked her if she would help out. She came straight up and we actually opened on time at 11am - though not much had been done. The safe was opened and it was $3,000 short.

 

The phone rang about 11.10am and the voice said this is Mr .... Account Number ...... Checking the Telephone Betting Ledger accounts holder there was no card for this account. I asked how much he had in his account and he said around $20. Thinking about good customer service rather than credit betting I took his bets for the day. Luckily he was the only Telephone Betting customer that day as there were about 5 account cards missing according to the register.
 

 

While I was selling the next customer said “I believe the Agent is in a lot of trouble”. It was the Parish Priest. “Yes “, I said “but cannot discuss it”, and he left. News travels fast in the country and the next arrivals were 2 local detectives who I asked to come back after the TAB had closed and I had time to see them.
 

 

During the day we managed to operate without any major dramas. I was able to get to the bank and confirm balance details. Despite all my belongings being back in Nyngan, I realised I would not be able to get back there that night so I phoned and advised the motel of my situation.
 

 

At 5.30pm Josie said she had to pick up the children and get dinner for the family. Around this time the Cleaner had arrived and mentioned that the Agent owed him close to $200 and he was aware that he had taken off.
 

 

6pm came and it was time to close, start balancing and sending collations. Josie had balanced up a few dollars out. Now dual cash control is a big “no no” but occasionally the drawer was open while the Cleaner was around and my cash balanced up $180 under.
 

 

I had to get the collations done but, being too slow on the Telex, transmitted by telephone to Control Centre. When it came to the quinella the collation was really tricky to a newcomer and I swore and said aloud “I have no idea how to do a full collation” From the Public Space came the Cleaner’s voice “I can do it” and he did! Later I found out he could also Pay and Sell.
 

 

Just after all the collations were sent and the cleaning finished the Detectives arrived again. After I gave them an account of what had occurred they said they believed the Agent had gone to the “two up” in Broken Hill the night before, at one stage was ahead around $5,000 but lost it all. That morning apparently a number of people had seen him come to the front door of the TAB and then turn around and walk off.
 

 

Josie had called me to say that she had been able to arrange accommodation at a local motel but it was ‘basic’. Basic it was –don’t think it had air conditioning but the shower worked and they did have breakfast. During the day it had reached 38 degrees in the office space –so my clothes were full of smoke and perspiration and I had to use them the next day as well as not having a shave.
 

 

Walking to the TAB next day I could feel all eyes on me and even some people came up and asked me about the Agent who was obviously well known in the town. The first thing I needed to do was investigate my $180 cash shortage – had I been touched by the Cleaner or was it a real cash under? Well it turned out to be unmatched tickets and I felt better about the Cleaner – who I doubted had ever filled in a tax return.
 

 

By later that morning I had balanced what I could, tidied up the records and gathered what Internal Audit needed to conduct their investigations. I had also recorded details of all the unpaid tickets remaining in the payout box noting particularly a $55 Melbourne Races unpaid dividend in 4 Week Olds.
 

 

Brian Stoyles the Area Supervisor based in Orange arrived and took over the running of the agency. I then left and drove the 800 kilometres to home.
 

 

The Agent eventually gave himself up at the TAB Head Office in Ultimo and was interviewed by senior Operations and Audit Division staff and later charged by police. He was formally dismissed by TAB on 17^th November 1970. He maintained his interest in the sport and the last time I saw him he was pencilling at Penrith Trots.
 

 

Sometime during the investigation the Customer’s copy of the $55 Melbourne Race ticket arrived by post to Head Office. The Unpaid ticket could not be located and was referred to the Orange Audit Clerk, Val Minney. Val found the “paid and matched ticket” in the Cleaner’s paid ticket bag. A check of the NCR ticket rolls confirmed that he had also sold an identical bet.
 

 

This matter was referred to Regional Controller Terry Bear who would interview the Cleaner regarding this co-incidence.

 

Terry recollects that “the Cleaner lived in the Aboriginal Housing Settlement and when I visited him, he quite obviously didn’t want his wife and children to know what I was there for, so the interview was conducted outside his house around dusk. Now Bourke is a town on the Darling River and they breed mosquitoes of substantial size, they didn’t name a WWII Bomber ‘Mosquito’ for nothing. During the interview the buggers were literally picking me up off the ground whilst they had their tea. It seemed that the cleaner was immune to them and I was their target. Anyway the interview disclosed that the cleaner was universally trained in TAB operations and his employment had been continued as a Relief for the Agency until things settled down. By coincidence he was working alone when he noticed that the ticket numbers on his machine were coming to the same as the $55 ticket in the old unpaid tickets, he still considered himself badly done by the Agent, and rather than the dividend going back to the Government, he duplicated the unpaid bet and matched it with the old ticket and pocketed the money”.

 

The TAB was going to pay the Cleaner his $180. When I rang him and mentioned the $ 55 – he was quite happy to receive the balance of $125.
 

 

One of the more interesting cases I handled in my time in Audit.